Local jobless rate among state’s lowest

Posted on Friday, February 1, 2013 at 3:14 am

Lincoln County’s jobless rate, at 5.3 percent, is the second lowest in the state for the month of December, according to the latest figures released by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

Only Williamson County, at 5.0 percent, registered a lower unemployment rate.

Lincoln County’s rate of 5.3 percent was up one-half a percentage point from November’s 4.8 percent rate.

All of Lincoln County’s neighboring communities reported increases in the jobless rate during the month of November. Marshall County, at 10.8 percent unemployment, registered an increase of nine-tenths of a percentage point over the previous month. Moore County, with a jobless rate of 6.7 percent, reported an increase of seven-tenths of a percentage point. Giles County also reported an increase of seven-tenths of a percentage point, with unemployment there rising to 9.2 percent in December.

Franklin County and Bedford County reported increases of one-half a percentage point in December, registering jobless rates of 6.9 percent and 8.3 percent, respectively. Coffee County’s unemployment rate rose one-tenth of a percentage point over the month, increasing to 7.3 percent in December.

County unemployment rates for December show the rate decreased in two counties and increased in 93 primarily due to normal seasonal employment declines. County unemployment rates are not seasonally adjusted and reflect seasonal employment changes from month to month.

Tennessee’s unemployment rate for December remained constant from the November revised rate of 7.6 percent. The national unemployment rate for December was 7.8 percent, also unchanged from the previous month.

The state unemployment rate is seasonally adjusted while the county unemployment rates are not. Seasonal adjustment is a statistical technique that eliminates the influences of weather, holidays, the opening and closing of schools and other recurring seasonal events from economic time series.

Knox County had the state’s lowest major metropolitan rate of 5.7 percent, up from 5.2 percent in November. Davidson County was 6.2 percent, up from 5.7 percent. Hamilton County was 7.2 percent, up from 6.4 percent, and Shelby County was 8.7 percent, up from 7.8 percent in November.

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